


Beneath The Floorboards

by violentredstrider



Category: Deadly Class (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Human Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Rating May Change, Slow To Update, Torture, Violence, Warnings May Change, i cant remember how to tag properly, might turn into an avenger's crossover idk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-31 08:55:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18587950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentredstrider/pseuds/violentredstrider
Summary: At first, Marcus is just glad to have a place to call home, a bed and a ragtag group of friends he's tentatively begun to call his family. He doesn't question the nightly pills they're all fed or even the random disappearances of students. It's not until one of his friends comes back worse for wear from the "Nurse's Office" that he finally wakes up to the suspicious goings on in King's Dominion. Determined to find out the truth behind it all Marcus risks everything to discover what's really hiding beneath the floorboards of his new home.





	Beneath The Floorboards

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick note to say that I have not read the comics so this is solely based around the first season of SYFY's Deadly Class tv show. I'll be sticking with the main events of the show very loosely, mostly just changing said events to fit into my timeline/plot ideas for this fic. So as long as you have seen the first season of the show you'll be golden to read this. 
> 
> Also, I'm having this be set in modern day rather than the late 80s.

Marcus had just been happy to have a bed again, a place to go to when the day was done. Somewhere to shelter him from the rain and the filth of the outside world. He’d been willing to do anything to hold onto the small glimmer of hope Master Lin had given him that was a place at King’s Dominion, even if that meant forsaking his own bodily autonomy in the hopes of keeping his new home and family. 

It had started small, small enough that Marcus didn’t really notice or question it passed his own minor suspicion and paranoia that had been ground into him thanks to the boys home and then the streets. But he was so happy to have a bed and friends that he was able to push his paranoia aside when the monks handed him that first little cup of pills for him to take at the end of each day. Two white pills and one blue, oblong, circular and one that looked enough like a Xanax for him to convince himself it was just a slew of medication to keep the students from completely losing it after a long day of unforgiving lessons and blood baths. 

Just before lights out a bell would sound and all of the students would be expected to step outside of their bedroom doors and line up along the wall. From there the monks would come with their rolling cart full of pill filled plastic cups and a jug of water for those who needed it. Marcus couldn’t deny the way his fingers had curled and uncurled with anxiety the first time he’d seen it, but who could blame him after a day of poison making and watching rabbits choke on their own blood. His eyes had remained glued to the cart, his eyes only flicking up to watch as each student took their own little cup and downed it without question. Watching the others, especially his friends when it was their turns, easily swallow the pills as if it was a normal thing was ultimately what got him to take his own when the cart stopped in front of him. He’d refused the water at first, dry swallowing the three pills and immediately regretting it as soon as the after taste hit him. Unfortunately for him, the monks had already moved on and he was forced to go to bed with that awful taste stuck in his mouth.

The next night when the monks reached him with the medicine cart he didn’t make the mistake of refusing the water again. It seemed normal, no one really questioned it, no one even really talked about it. It was mundane to the point where Marcus hardly even cared anymore when the nightly bell rang and he swallowed his pills, so used to it after only a couple of weeks that his body moved almost on autopilot to stand against the wall and wait for his turn. Looking back on it he figured that was the trick about it, make it so mundane that no one cares enough to ask questions they just do as their told and life goes on with the students none the wiser. The mundanity of the nightly pill routine was probably what made it so easy to move the students into the next phase of the guild’s plans. 

\--

“Whoa, dude, you look like shit.” Marcus blinked as he stared at Billie, he’d never seen his fellow rat so… Corpse-like. Marcus took a step back, being mindful of the edge of the roof, as Billie turned to face him fully. His usually fluffy green mohawk was flattened and pushed back as if he’d used gel to slick it down, Billie’s face was sunken in and pale, his pupils dilated and bloodshot. Marcus couldn’t help but fixate on the way Billie’s entire body trembled and shook with each breath he took, he looked like he’d decided to take a handful of LSD and then go spend a night in a haunted house for a hell of a bad trip.

“Hah… Yeah…” Billie’s voice lacked any life at all, flat and near one dimensional, though the subtle quirk to one side of his lips assured Marcus enough that he wasn’t actually staring at a ghost. 

“Come on, Billie, let's go sit down.” Petra was there suddenly, giving Marcus a look that told him to drop it, as she gently took Billie by the arm and guiding him back to the ratty mattress they’d dragged up there not too long ago. For once Lex chose a mellow song, not even kicking up a fuss when Billie laid his head down on one of Lex’s thighs, Petra dragging his legs into her lap. 

Marcus worried his bottom lip between his teeth, the atmosphere of the entire rooftop was changed, hospital quiet and delicate in a way that it unsettled him to his core. What had happened to his rowdy band of rats? Even when Billie had his arm broken he’d still been full of energy and bubbly for lack of a better word. To see him so totally exhausted worried Marcus beyond belief. He made a step towards the punk trio only to feel a hand catch him by the shoulder, making him flinch as he hadn’t heard anyone approaching him from behind. 

“Sorry,” Saya quickly dropped her hand, her face twitching into a momentary look of guilt before quickly smoothing out again. “He’ll be okay, Marcus, he just needs a day or two to get back to normal.” She quietly assured him, Marcus watched the way her hand twitched as if she wanted to reach out and touch him again, to comfort him but having to restrain herself. By this point, they all knew how much Marcus hated to be touched, but it was a hard thing to resist or even remember when their own first instincts with one another were to reach out and offer a comforting hand. 

“What happened to him? Was it…” He trailed off as he glanced back at Billie, his eyes carefully scanning what parts of his skin he could see for any signs of bruising or other abuse. 

“No, no, you know we don't let Billie go home without at least one of us with him,” Saya reassured Marcus quickly, ever since Billie had broken down and told them about his father they’d all made a silent pact to never let Billie go home alone on breaks anymore. None of them could stand to see the cuts and bruises on his face. They’d even made a tentative plan to kill his father and solve the problem altogether but Billie wasn’t ready for that kind of a step, not yet, anyway. 

“He went to the nurse’s office last night,” Willie’s voice drew both Marcus and Saya to the entrance of the roof where the tall boy was currently standing, casting his eyes at Billie for a moment before nodding towards the other side of the roof. Marcus and Saya quickly joined him, far enough away to not be overheard and to not disturb the restless sleep of their unwell friend. “He had to get his checkup.” Willie finished once they were gathered far enough away. Marcus couldn’t help but feel like a little kid about to get the talk from his parents.

“Okay? What did the nurse do, kick his ass?” Marcu’s eyebrows drew up in confusion, looking between Saya and Willie as they both exchanged an unreadable look between the two of them. Saya finally sighed and broke the awkward tension. 

“No, the nurse’s office isn’t what you think… Neither is a checkup.” The way they kept putting emphasis on the work checkup made his stomach twist, the nervous dread that colored their faces wasn’t helping either. 

“Then what is it?” He asked quickly when neither of them seemed willing to explain, the anxious silence starting to gnaw at his nerves. He crossed his arms tightly over his chest, leaning back against one of the roof fixtures as he looked at them expectantly. “Just tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“Nurse’s office is… It’s more like a code word…” Willie grew up in the way he does when he’s uncomfortable, chewing on the pick in his mouth and looking at anywhere but Marcus. “It’s different for everybody, apparently. All we know is every so often the monks come and take you, tell you it’s time for a checkup at the nurse’s office.” Marcus glanced from Willie to Saya, unlike their taller companion she was looking straight at Marcus as if trying to read every little thing going through his mind. “But it ain't a real nurse’s office, not the one we go to when we get banged up in class. It’s this place, below the school, like a… Basement or a…”

“A lab.” Saya finishes when Willie struggles to find the words, her face is harder than before, the nervous tension from before replaced with that stone cold expression she wears when she wants to hide her true feelings on the matter. “The monks take you to a lab where you get evaluated by a doctor.”

Marcus was still confused and his face must have clearly shown it as Willie let out an exasperated noise and finally turned to look at him.

“They take you down there and make you do all kinds of weird shit.” Willie’s voice was low now, Marcus hard to lean in to hear him correctly now, frowning and wondering why they were whispering all of a sudden. “Like I said, it’s different for everybody and we ain’t really supposed to talk about it either.” This made the anxious tension in Marcus’s stomach only grow worse, his confused expression morphing into a deep frown as he glanced between his two friends, his eyes eventually landing on Saya. She was usually the bluntest and least afraid of the lot of them if anyone could give him the whole truth it’d be her, yet to his surprise, she stayed completely silent. Marcus realized then just how serious this must have truly been. 

“But… Why?” Marcus finally managed to speak, of all the questions rattling around in his head why was the only one who could get to actually come out.   
“You’ll know when they come for you,” Saya answered ominously. “I know you’re too damn stubborn for your own good, especially when you want something but for your own good just drop it, Marcus. We’ve told you too much already.” She shook her head when Marcus opened his mouth to ask another question, she turned quickly and made her way to the exit of the roof, not sparing him another glance. 

“Listen,” Willie’s voice drew him back, the boy glanced around nervously before leaning even closer and whispering barely loud enough for Marcus to hear him over the sounds of the city below them. “People change after their first checkup, the doctor picks and chooses between us who he likes the best, if he likes you he’ll pull you for checkups more often and you’ll… Most times, the people who spend a lot of time in the nurse’s office, they stop coming back out.”

Before Marcus could think of anything to say in response, Willie was walking away from him, heading down the same way Saya had gone only a moment before. Marcus leaned heaving back against the roof fixture, his leg bouncing as he chewed on his lip and tried to gather is jittery thoughts. He thought back to the months that he’d spent with the school so far, the longer he racked his brain the more he remembered. Whispers in the hall about someone getting a checkup, rumors about students who had failed to reappear when the morning had come, all quickly swept under the thick rug of lies and fear that permeated the core of the school. He remembered how Chico had disappeared not too long after their fight in the courtyard when Master Lin had caught them. He’d figured Master Lin had taken disciplinary action against Chico for in school fighting, maybe even expelling him for it but the more Marcus thought about it the more suspicious he became. 

His eyes drifted along the roof to his three friends still gathered on the mattress. Looking at Billie made him think back to Maria, all those days she’d seemed a little off but he’d chalked it up to her having to deal with Chico or just her being… Well, her, as much as he hated to admit it there was a little truth behind the horrible name of Crazy Maria. It was only now, and much to his own guilt and shame, he realized she’d just been better at hiding the aftereffects of a checkup then Billie was. Worst of all he couldn’t exactly remember the last time he’d seen Maria, she hadn’t come to the roof since Chico had disappeared, but even then he’d still seen her in the halls up until a few days ago. His stomach twisted as he remembered Willie’s warning about what happens to those who spend too much time in the nurse’s office. 

Marcus’s eyes traveled to Billie, he couldn’t let Billie disappear. He couldn’t allow this doctor to take his family away from him one by one. He wouldn’t let that happen, no matter what it costed. 

\--

That night when the monks with the medicine cart stopped in front of him he hesitated. He stared at the little plastic pill cup that one of the monks held out to him. His tongue felt thick in his throat as he looked at the little pills he’d taken so carelessly in the past. He clenched his hands into fists. There was something going on here, something deeper than any of them really knew. It hadn’t been hard to connect the doctor with the pills, what else would the pills be for? Who even prescribed the pills if not the doctor beneath the floorboards? Looking at the pills he felt sick like he wished he could stick it fingers down his throat and bring up all the pills he’d been swallowing for months. 

“Take it.” The monk holding the pills instructed sternly, it was the first time he’d actually heard the monk speak, he could feel sweat trickling down the back of his neck.

“Tell me what it is and I’ll take it.” His voice shook as he spoke, he could feel the eyes of the other students congregating on him now. The monks shared a look between the two of them before looking back to him again.

“Take it, or you will be punished.” The same monk from before replied, thrusting the pill cup a little more forcefully at him. 

Marcus swallowed thickly, by now he knew well was punishment meant in this place. Strapped to a chair and whipped by Master Lin’s cane across his face and palms. He shivered to remember the blistering sting of the polish wood but he held firm none the less. He’d lived through it enough times already to know he could live through it again.

“No.” He finally mustered the courage to speak the word, the monks looked at one another and for a moment Marcus tensed as he was sure he was about to be struck by at least one of them.

To his surprise, the monk holding the pill cup placed it back onto the cart and then both monks moved on to the next student without a word. Marcus’s face drew up in nervous confusion as he watched the monks make their way down the hall, handing out pills to students who continued to glance his way even as they wordlessly swallowed their poison. The monks did not spare a glance to Marcus even when the rounded the corner and moved on to the next residential hallway.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Marcus jumped as his roommate tugged him back into their room, shaking slightly with the nervous release of tension he’d been holding. 

“S-sorry…” Marcus apologized on instinct, moving away from the smaller boy and towards his own bed before he could be scolded further. He slipped into his bed and laid on his back, staring up at the ceiling as the lights finally flickered out, plunging him into darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know the pacing, structure and general flow of this first chapter sucks... Hard... In my defense, it's been at least a year maybe more since I was able to sit down and properly write something again.
> 
> I work a parttime job as well as go to college so updates will be slow more than likely. I'll try to write ahead what I can on my days off and whenever else I can. 
> 
> Also like I said in the tags I'm really considering eventually having this be a crossover with the MCU, my initial intention with writing this fic was to have it be a crossover but it might take a while for it to get there. Not planning on crossing it over until I've finished up the events of season 1 which will take a couple of chapters. 
> 
> Not much here this first chapter just rambled intro stuff, sorry, but more to come with the next chapter!!
> 
> Let me know what you think and I'm always open for some constructive criticism!! Thanks!


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